Reunification Day Why are there no official celebrations in Bonn?
Bonn · Critics are unhappy about a lack of reunification celebrations in the former capital.
The roads will be busy again today as people take advantage of the long weekend to go on excursions. But isn’t today something special? German Reunification Day? The day barely features on the Bonn events calendar.
The Haus der Geschichte is holding a “Reunification Family Party” and a few churches have services dedicated to the day. Yesterday evening the Jazz Galerie held a “Dance into Unity” and the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation will host a private function.
Yet Friedrich Nowottny, the former chief correspondent for ARD in Bonn, finds it hard to believe there is no official commemoration for 3 October in the former federal capital.
Marc Hoffmann, deputy city spokesman, said, “The celebrations on 3 October alternate between Bonn and Potsdam.” Mayor Reinhard Limbach is speaking this year in Potsdam. The city has also sent representatives to the celebrations in Dresden.
“Are the city and its political leaders so annoyed at no longer being the capital, that they have only planned very private moments of reflection?” asks Nowottny. “Despite Dresden and Bautzen, to me, October 3 is a day of historic significance.”
Stephan Eisel (CDU) agrees: “I still find it a miracle that Germany is reunited in freedom. I was very familiar with the East German dictatorship, with the wall and the orders to shoot,” explains the former colleague of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Eisel experienced the fall of the wall and the reunification process from the Chancellor’s office. The most important decisions were made in Bonn. “It’s a shame we don’t make more of it.”
translated by Kate Carey.
